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Alton Towers Railway Station

MattyH

MattyH

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Thought you lot might be interested
The Churnet Valley Railway is a preserved standard gauge heritage railway to the east of Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire.
This stretch of railway is owned by the Moorlands & City Railway, a commercial venture which aims to run freight trains between Cauldon and the main national network at Stoke-on-Trent, with an agreement that the CVR can run passenger trains over it in return for the M&CR's use of the Churnet Valley line as far as Oakamoor quarry and, in the future, Alton (for Alton Towers).
Copy and pasted of wikipedia, but its true...
 
I dearly hope that this one day happens. Of course the funds required to construct and operate it would be huge, but it would bring in so many more visitors to AT and would be so beneficial to the local economy that it would probably gain huge government support anyway.
 
There doing it slowly, they have planning permission, will try and find updates.
 
As a railway enthusiast (and volunteer at the Churnet Valley Railway) I am very much excited about this. Unfortunately, as a Towers enthusiast it excites me very little. When you really look in to all the details, it's actually a pretty useless link to the park. The station is flipping miles away from the main entrance, and even if a second entrance was to be opened especially for the railway it's still at the bottom of the valley, miles away from the actual park. Also, due to the very busy nature of Stoke Station, the trains couldn't come from the mainline onto the branch, so a station would need to be built where the line leaves the main. Really, you'd be quicker, cheaper and arrive actually at your destination by bus from just outside the front door of Stoke Station.

But, like I say, from a railway enthusiast's point of view, the extra mileage will be brilliant!
 
Mr P said:
As a railway enthusiast (and volunteer at the Churnet Valley Railway) I am very much excited about this. Unfortunately, as a Towers enthusiast it excites me very little. When you really look in to all the details, it's actually a pretty useless link to the park. The station is flipping miles away from the main entrance, and even if a second entrance was to be opened especially for the railway it's still at the bottom of the valley, miles away from the actual park. Also, due to the very busy nature of Stoke Station, the trains couldn't come from the mainline onto the branch, so a station would need to be built where the line leaves the main. Really, you'd be quicker, cheaper and arrive actually at your destination by bus from just outside the front door of Stoke Station.

But, like I say, from a railway enthusiast's point of view, the extra mileage will be brilliant!
Click to expand...

actually its probably not , the bus would get stuck in so much traffic near the towers would be quicker to get train...
 
It would be significantly quicker to get the bus for several reasons:

- the bus goes from right outside the station to the entrance plaza at Towers, if you got the train you'd have a moderate walk at both ends.
- the train route is not very direct, and due to the nature of Leekbrook junction the train would have to stop to turn around
- much of the line has a very low speed limit, I think it's either 20 or 25mph

You'll be looking at a journey time of well over an hour from Stoke to Towers station. The line could come in handy for boaters if trains to/from Towers were to stop at Froghall, Consall Forge or Cheddleton, all of which are close to the canal, but anyone travelling from Stoke should stick with the bus.
 
John said:
It would be significantly quicker to get the bus for several reasons:

- the bus goes from right outside the station to the entrance plaza at Towers, if you got the train you'd have a moderate walk at both ends.
- the train route is not very direct, and due to the nature of Leekbrook junction the train would have to stop to turn around
- much of the line has a very low speed limit, I think it's either 20 or 25mph

You'll be looking at a journey time of well over an hour from Stoke to Towers station. The line could come in handy for boaters if trains to/from Towers were to stop at Froghall, Consall Forge or Cheddleton, all of which are close to the canal, but anyone travelling from Stoke should stick with the bus.
Click to expand...

The MCR website makes it out to be much more significant than it actually is then based upon your opinion. They state that it will take a lot of pressure off the roads and make it much easier to access AT from all across the country. I severely doubt this could happen with the distance from the park and the low train speed, not to mention the awkwardness of the track in relation to Stoke.
 
CVR probably has a light railway order like most other preserved lines which limits them to 25mph
 
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